


Quest

by Severina



Series: Alphabet Soup [17]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: 1_million_words, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 14:45:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5167754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Glenn wants to find something special on a run.  The walkers have other ideas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quest

**Author's Note:**

> Post Season One. Written for prompt "Q" at LJ's 1_million_words A to Z challenge.
> 
> * * *

"Just one more stop," Glenn says.

Daryl hunkers behind the hulk of an old car, scans the street. Only a few walkers down the end of the block, stumbling around near the crumbling shell of an office building. The fire that had razed the CDC and spread to the surrounding towers must've driven the walkers south, or burned up any that got too close to the flames. They've been lucky so far. Weren't no need to push that luck any further than they had to. 

He shifts the backpack and hears the cans inside clank against each other faintly. "We got enough," he says.

"It's only around the corner and half a block down," Glenn insists. "We can make it!"

Daryl shakes his head, but the kid is already darting out from behind a makeshift barricade of office chairs and battered filing cabinets. "Oughtta let ya go it alone," he mutters. "Serve ya right if ya got your stupid goddamn ass killed."

'Course, then Rick and Lori'd never let him hear the end of it. Probably blame him for the kid's impulsiveness. Like Glenn ever listens to a damn thing anyone says on these fuckin' runs. Still, he don't wanna get nagged by the Grimes family for the rest of his natural born life, and that's the only damn reason he swings his bow forward and takes off after the kid. Least that's the reason he'll give if anybody asks.

He catches up to Glenn in front of a nail salon with a cracked front window. The walkers at the end of the street have caught their movement – of course they have, him and the kid are the only things moving 'cept for a scrap of newspaper caught on the hubcap of an overturned subaru – and are starting the ol' shuffle-drag toward the middle of the block. Four of 'em, not usually a big problem, but he's only got so many arrows and it takes some time to reload. He reaches out to grab Glenn's elbow and nearly pulls back. The kid is thrummin'. It's like touching a live wire, and that ain't exactly conducive to keeping your head in the heat of a battle. He tugs the kid around and Glenn's eyes are shining like a goddamn beacon, so he has to give him a shake. "This ain't no game," he says. 

"I know that!" Glenn whispers. "But there's only four of… oh shit."

When the kid's eyes go wide Daryl looks over his shoulder. The four have suddenly become half a dozen, and more are lurching from the partially blocked alley between an old time barber shop and a ransacked shoe store. "Oh, shit," he repeats. The kid just stands there, mouth open, frozen like one of them living statues he saw once at some town fair. Daryl shoves him between the shoulder blades hard enough that he stumbles. "Move!"

He follows Glenn back the way they came, whirling midway to get off one shot with the bow. It takes the lead walker between the eyes and she crumples and goes down, but the others only stumble over her prone body and continue on. They're moaning now, and even over the pounding of their footsteps on the pavement he can hear their jaws snapping, and he just has to hope that the kid knows where the fuck he's going. They take one blind turn and then another, the kid barely stopping to ensure the coast is clear before he jets around each corner, and then Glenn abruptly rears to the left and dives into a recessed doorway. 

Daryl skids to a stop, shakes his head. "You kiddin'?" he hisses out. "You think we can stand here and they'll just walk right by? They can smell us, dumbass!"

Glenn just looks over his shoulder and gives him a goddamn cocky grin before he stretches up on his tiptoes, and it's only when Daryl takes a step closer that he sees the broken hatch above the door. Glenn hooks his fingers around the edge and hikes himself up… and up, reaching above and clinging onto something that Daryl can't see and hauling himself up, somehow, into the second floor. Daryl takes a quick look behind him – the street is still clear, but the sound of the walkers stumbling steps and their incessant moaning is getting louder – and then Glenn's hand pops out of the opening above and waves at him. He hastily unhooks the backpack from his back, hands it and the bow up into the opening before pulling himself up as well. 

He emerges into the hallway of sorts. There's a slight, narrow slit of a broken window above the improvised crawlspace, the anti-burglary bars still in place. Two doors – A and B – and a short staircase at the end of the hall leading into the darkness below. 

"Apartments," Glenn says in answer to his unspoken question. "They're clear. So's the store downstairs, but it's just a hair salon. Nothing there we need, unless you want to set your hair in pin curls or dye it magenta for the apocalypse."

"Think I'll pass," Daryl says. He follows the streaks in the dust to the end of the hallway, drops down onto the top step and carefully sets his crossbow beside him before he leans his back against the wall. It's obvious from the signs of habitation that the kid's done this before. It's a smart little hideaway. Only thing is, it's not obvious at all from the street. Which means that the kid only found it by dumb luck, probably gettin' chased by another bunch just like that one. The thought makes his stomach turn in queasy circles that ain't got nothing to do with the squirrel they had for breakfast.

"Figure we can hole up here until they pass us by," the kid says. "Might take a while. Wanna open one of those cans of peaches?"

"You nuts?"

"Huh?" Glenn blinks, stops rustling through the backpack in mid-motion. "I don't think anybody'd mind if we had one. If you think we should open something more gross like green beans or something then we could—"

"You stupid or somethin'? You got any brains at all in there?"

"Keep your fucking voice down!"

Daryl kicks at the banister is lieu of shouting at the kid. Glenn's right – ain't gonna do any good if the sound of his voice leads the walkers straight to their hideout. He forces himself not to yell, though it sure as hell ain't easy. "What were you thinkin', huh? Just takin' off in the middle of the street!"

Glenn digs the peaches out from the pack, then merely stares at them before slumping down across from Daryl. "There were only four—"

"Four turns into twenty four in a goddamn hurry!"

"Okay, I get it!" Glenn snaps. "I just thought we could make it around the corner to that other shop, and—"

"What the hell is so goddamn important at that store? And I swear to fuck if you tell me chocolate—"

"I wasn't trying to reach a bakery! Jesus Christ, Daryl!"

"Then what?" Daryl half-shouts, and fuck the damn walkers outside.

"Arrows, okay!" Glenn responds in kind. His fists clench until he realizes just how much he's raised his voice, and he shoots a quick look at the window. There doesn't seem to be any action down below, so he relaxes in slow increments. When he sees that he's still holding the can of peaches, he sets it down next to his thigh before staring at the dirty floorboards. "It's a sporting goods store. I found it on my last run and it _seemed_ like no one had got to it yet, so I thought we could…. Look, I just noticed that you don't have many arrows left and I thought we could get some more."

Daryl shakes his head. "You dumbass."

Glenn looks up sharply. "Yeah," he snaps. "You're right. I'm a dumbass. Stupid me for thinking that I could get something nice for my boyfr… for someone that I…"

Daryl leans forward far enough to wrap his fist in Glenn's T-shirt and tug him forward. "I can make my own damn arrows," he says just before their lips touch.

When Glenn's palms come up to rest at his shoulders he almost thinks the kid means to push him away – Glenn can hold a damn grudge when he wants to, and gettin' called a dumbass twice in the space of fifteen minutes might qualify – but it turns out he's simply getting his balance. He leans into the kiss but keeps it soft and warm, and then pulls back just far enough that Daryl can see his eyes. 

"You can?" he asks.

Daryl frowns. "Huh?"

Glenn's face splits in a wide grin. "Okay, I'm totally going to take you being unable to follow a conversation after kissing me as a _total_ compliment," he says. He leans forward again to peck lightly at Daryl's lips – just a tease as far as Daryl's concerned – and then sits back on his haunches. "Arrows. You can make your own?"

Daryl blinks. Right. They were mad at each other a few minutes ago. "Fuck yeah," he says. "Just need the right kinda wood. Was makin' a few back at camp before…"

He swallows dryly, sees the geeks spilling into the camp all over again. The rifle firing, deafening, again and again; a walker hunched over a still and bloody body; someone's intestines dragging through the dirt. Snapshots of horror. He sees the images flit through Glenn's mind as clear as they are his own. "Yeah," Glenn says hastily. "Before."

"Anyway," Daryl says finally, reluctantly, "it was a good thought, a sporting goods store. Might have other shit we can use." He holds up a hand before Glenn gets the chance to crow. "But it was bad fuckin' execution."

The kid ducks his head. "Yeah. I just wanted it to be surprise, you know—" His head jerks up at the sound of something rattling down below, and he lowers his voice to a bare whisper. "I think that's the garbage can on the other side of the street."

"Shit," Daryl murmurs back. He hefts the bow in one hand and pushes himself up with the other, crabwalks across the hall and takes position to the side of the narrow window. "Looks like they're just millin' around out there," he reports. 

"They don't normally come down this way," Glenn says. 

"Sorry," Daryl says softly. He leans back against the wall, and when Glenn just raises a brow he lifts a shoulder. "For raisin' my voice. Probably drew them down here."

He doesn't mention how it felt like his stomach was comin' out through his shoes when Glenn darted out from behind that barricade without him and his bow to cover his back, or how every time Glenn goes out on a run by himself he stalks around and bites everyone's heads off until the kid makes it back safe and sound. He really doesn't say anything at all, but he thinks Glenn might hear him anyway 'cause the kid shakes his head. 

"Nah, just bad luck," Glenn says. "But it'll take them awhile to scatter. Think we should open the peaches?"

Daryl starts to nod – breakfast was a long fuckin' time ago – but then he gets a better idea. "You said there's apartments behind those doors?"

"Well, kinda," Glenn says. "Just rooms, really, with one of those little beer fridges and a hotplate. Though knowing the way some landlords price gouged… Did you know that I was paying a cool thousand a month for my place before the world went to shit? A thousand bucks for a shoebox and a stopped up toilet, so ridicu—"

"One of them rooms got a bed?"

Glenn blinks. "Yeah, each one has a single bed and a…" He stops suddenly, and the grin that appears is just this shade of wicked. "Ohhhh," he says. "I like the way your mind works."

Daryl shrugs. "Might as well do somethin' to pass the time."

"Don't you mean do some _one_?" Glenn asks. 

Yeah, definitely wicked. 

Later, when Rick asks how long it took the walkers to disperse, Daryl guesses four hours. Glenn thinks it was more like six. 

It was actually three, but they were both having too much fun to notice.


End file.
